Classroom Management Tips for High-Poverty Students

Minds in Bloom is excited to welcome Michelle from The IgnitED Teacher to our blog today! Michelle has written a really helpful post about classroom management tips for high-poverty students. Classrooms where the population of students is at-risk tend to be common places for struggles with behavior management, which is often understandable when you consider that students frequently choose to misbehave to distract from the fact that they don’t understand what’s being taught. Michelle’s got four tips for behavior management for at-risk students, so keep reading to learn from her insight.

Teachers are increasingly faced with challenges stemming from the intensity and scope of student needs in the classroom. If you ask a new teacher what their number concern is, they will probably mention classroom management or student behavior.

Most teachers look at classroom management as this huge monster, when in fact it is a taxonomy of different topics. Student behavior is one of the most neglected areas of classroom management. Most teachers would probably agree that teacher preparation programs give new teachers the impression that their classroom management plan will solve all of their behavior problems. This couldn’t be the further from the truth!

A classroom management plan will most likely (depending on student age and demographic) only solve about 60% of classroom problems. The other 40% or so will require managing individual student behavior.

When teachers face classroom management issues, there’s one phrase that most of them will say: “It’s not the whole class.” For the most part, this is true! Even in my own classroom, there’s always 3-4 students whose behavior upsets my classroom environment.

The ultimate goal for teachers is to manage student behavior on case-by-case basis. This can be done by following four steps: identify behaviors, track frequency of behaviors, create a response to invention plan, and track progress.

1. Identify Behaviors

Before a teacher can start managing student behavior, he/she has to be able to identify the behaviors that are causing the problems. This requires unbiased observations. This means that the teacher must disconnect and stay calm. Staying calm is the most important part of this step because an emotional person usually makes decisions based on their emotions at that particular time.

During this step, the teacher should carefully observe the following:

Interaction with peers and adults

Behavior in different environments

Behavior triggers

Time of day

Behavior observations should be done for at least three days. Sometimes certain behavior can be situational, meaning something may have happened that’s out of the student’s normal routine.

2. Track Frequency of Behaviors

Once the behaviors have been identified, the teacher then chooses two behaviors that cause the most disruption in the classroom. For example, when I was teaching 3rd grade, I had a student who would leave his seat to go hit another student. I felt like if I could first get the student to stay in his seat, it would change the classroom dynamic.
There are plenty of behavior tracking sheets, but I’ve found that I’m way too busy to keep up with tracking sheets that contain too much information. I like to use tally marks to track the two targeted behaviors.

When tracking behavior, make note of the time of day, during what activity, and how often. For instance, let’s say I have a 5th grade student who is out of control after she spends the weekend with her father. She visits her father every other weekend, so every other Monday we bump heads.

Also, Mondays can be difficult days for certain students in difficult situations because on the weekend, some students lack parental supervision and structure. So, on Monday it can feel like you’re starting over. This may or may not be included in the behavior frequency because every situation is different.

3. Create a Response to Intervention Plan

Creating a Response to Intervention, or RTI, plan is by far the most important and most difficult part of managing student behavior. An RTI plan requires a team of people to use the teacher’s anecdotal notes to identify appropriate interventions for the targeted behaviors.

The RTI plan takes the two targeted behaviors from the tracking sheet and provides the teacher with interventions that can be used to address these behaviors. Most schools and counselors use the Pre-Referral Intervention Manual for interventions. It has the common student misbehaviors and provides suggestions for interventions. As with all resources, this manual gives teachers and RTI teams a starting point for helping students who need more behavior support. It’s not the whole kit and caboodle.

The RTI plan includes:

Targeted behaviors

Interventions/replacement behaviors

Consequences and rewards

Responsibility for monitoring the plan

Remember: All interventions will not work with all students. RTI teams have to take student motivation, age, and interest into consideration when creating an RTI plan or a BIP (Behavior Intervention Plan). Also, older students should be allowed to take part in the construction of the plan. This will help with student participation and sometimes will alleviate defiance.

4. Track Progress

Tracking student progress is an essential part of managing student behavior. The goal of any behavior intervention plan is to teach replacement behaviors for undesirable behaviors so that the student can receive instruction. If a student has made progress, then the RTI plan will need to be revised. Dates for reconvening to discuss student progress are decided during the construction of the RTI Plan.

The behavior plans that I have written or been a part of usually gives the student four weeks with the intervention before determining if the student has made progress. If you work in a school where you lack support, then give the student at least four weeks to begin using the intervention.

Managing student behavior can be tricky for teachers, especially if you lack support and resources. If you’d like to download a copy of my free 5-Step Process for Managing Student Behavior, then check out my website!

I’m Michelle, and I work with motivated educators of high-need students, who want to effectively manage their classrooms and increase student achievement.